Dialectal variation

In AAVE, final nasals may be deleted and the preceding vowel is nasalized (e.g. den [dεn] → [dε̄]). In the North of England, there is dialectal variation between /ŋ/ and /ŋg/; the old /ŋg/ survives, especially before vowels (e.g. singer). Similar cases can be found in the US southern mountains. The most obvious variation in the USA is the substitution of /n/ for /ŋ/ in the unstressed -ing, as in going, something, and so on. This appears to occur, at least for several speakers, more commonly in the progressive (e.g. “he is reading”) than in gerunds (e.g. “reading is fun”).